Method of obtaining and linking positional information to position specific multimedia content

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to a method of obtaining positional information of a mobile phone carrier and linking the positional information to position specific multimedia content, such as photos or audio. The method is performed by detecting the position information of the mobile phone and linking the position information to the position specific multimedia content.

The present invention relates to a method of obtaining positionalinformation of a mobile phone carrier and linking said positionalinformation to position specific multimedia content. The inventionfurther relates to a system for obtaining positional information of amobile phone carrier and linking said positional information to positionspecific multimedia content.

When travelling, travellers like to have memories e.g. by takingpictures. After a travel the traveller often ends up having thousands ofpictures and it can be a problem to remember where a specific picturewas taken. Today it is possible to buy special cameras where a GlobalPositioning System (GPS) is embedded in the camera and then, when apicture is taken, the geographical location can be embedded in thepicture. Later, when the tour is complete, the user can sort thepictures according to their GPS coordinates. Once the coordinate isknown, the user manually finds out in which city the picture was takenand even what the name of a photographed monument is, with the help of amap.

EP 0869464 relates to a system for securing a person. The systemcomprises a portable security device being a mobile phone and a portablevideo camera. The images recorded by the video camera are sent to anemergency centre via the mobile phone and the system then preventsviolence on the person, carrying the equipment, by recording theidentity of the aggressor(s) and further ensuring that the aggressor isnot able to track down the evidence. The mobile phone is used fordetermining the position of the security system, whereby the emergencycentre personnel can track down the person being aggressed. The documentdoes not describe how position information can be added to multimediacontent, such as photos.

The problem is that it is necessary to have either a GPS as a standaloneor attached to the camera, which makes the solution very expensive formost users. Another problem is that it is necessary to manuallydetermine e.g. city name or monument name based on the GPS values whichalso makes the method both very cumbersome and difficult to use forpeople who are not familiar with the use of high tech devices.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a solution to theabove-mentioned problems.

This is obtained by a method of obtaining positional information of amobile phone carrier and linking said positional information to positionspecific multimedia content characterized in that the method comprisesthe steps of:

-   -   obtaining the position information of the mobile phone based on        a position detection of the mobile phone,    -   linking the position information to said position specific        multimedia content.

The position information could be detected after receiving a requestfrom the mobile phone or it could be included in the request receivedfrom the mobile phone.

Thereby the geographical position of the traveller is determined andthere is no need for a specific GPS function. Further, by determiningthe geographical position of a mobile phone, the method can be used by alarge number of people since the mobile phone is already a widelyaccepted and used device. Many mobile phones already have a specificpositioning ability, but even if they do not have this, the position canbe found by standard positioning techniques. The standard positioningtechniques could e.g. be techniques such as the accurateEnhanced-Observed Time Difference (E-OTD) or the less accuratetechniques, where the Cell ID in Global System for Mobile Communication(GSM) is obtained or by using Timing Advance TA methods.

A mobile phone carrier having a camera can then, when storing a photo inthe camera, link the position of the mobile phone carrier to the photo.The method could e.g. be performed at a web portal, where the web portalreceives a request from the mobile phone e.g. via Short Message Service(SMS) or Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). After receiving therequest the portal detects the position of the mobile phone e.g. byrequesting it from a service provider detecting the position of themobile phone using the standard positioning techniques. When theposition information has been detected, it can be linked to themultimedia content e.g. by ensuring that the multimedia content and theposition information share a unique ID.

Similarly, when the user doesn't have any multimedia equipment, then,when the position information of the mobile phone (hence the user) isdetected, it can be linked to previously stored multimedia content inthe web portal.

The position specific multimedia content could e.g. be a photo taken atthe position (either by the user or by a photo maintained or collectedby the portal) or an audio recorded at the position e.g. at a sportingevent. In the case where the position specific multimedia content isaudio, the audio could be recorded by using the microphone in the mobilephone. Alternatively, audio content could be an audio clip, which ispre-recorded and stored by the web portal (for example, sound from aMotor Grand Prix circuit).

In a specific embodiment the method further comprises the step ofreceiving identification of said position specific multimedia contentfrom the mobile phone carrier. In this case the portal only receives anidentification of the position specific multimedia content. Theidentification could correspond to an identification of a photo storedin an analog or in a digital camera being carried by the mobile phonecarrier.

Alternatively, the received identification of the position specificmultimedia content could be an identification of multimedia content thathas been selected by the mobile phone carrier between a number ofidentifications of stored position specific multimedia content receivedfrom the portal. The number of identifications of stored positionspecific multimedia content could be obtained from the portal accordingto the detected position information. This enables a mobile phonecarrier, not carrying a multimedia content recorder, to use theprestored position specific multimedia content instead. Further, thestored content could be used as a supplement to the multimedia contentrecorded by the analog or digital camera as specified above.

In another embodiment the method further comprises the step of receivingposition specific multimedia content from the mobile phone carrier. Therecorded position specific multimedia content could also be transmittedfrom the mobile phone to the portal. This could e.g. be done bytransmitting a photo from a camera connected to the mobile telephone. Inthis case the portal can store all multimedia content centrally and theinformation stored on the camera could be deleted. It is therebyobtained that it is not crucial to avoid deletion of the photos storedin the memory card of e.g. a digital camera, and smaller memory cardscould be used. Further, in case the camera gets stolen, the memory cardis deleted by accident or the memory card is destroyed, a safety backupis provided at the portal. Further, by storing the information at theportal, other people could get access to the position specificmultimedia content by establishing access to the portal using e.g. apassword authorized by the mobile phone carrier.

In an embodiment the position specific multimedia content is recorded bya multimedia recording device at said position of the mobile phonecarrier. In this case content being unique for the mobile phone carriersuch as pictures or sound is recorded and attached with positioninformation. This could e.g. be a picture or sound from a specificsituation or person.

In another embodiment the method further comprises the step of receivingproperties of said multimedia recording device from the mobile phonecarrier.

This could e.g. be according to properties of the camera such asluminous intensity, exposure or lens zoom, which later can be valuableinformation.

In yet another embodiment the step of detecting the position informationof the mobile phone also comprises detecting the magnetic orientation ofthe mobile phone carrier.

Thereby not only the position but also the orientation of the mobilephone carrier can be obtained and this can be used to establish what themobile phone carrier is looking at. By establishing this, the name ofe.g. a tourist attraction can be obtained and linked to the multimediacontent.

In an embodiment the method further comprises the step of sorting themultimedia content according to sorting criterion.

The sorting criterion could e.g. be the geographical position such ascountry, city or monument name. Further, the criterion could be theproperties of the multimedia device as described above. It is therebyobtained that a specific photo can easily be found.

In another embodiment the sorting criterion is based on propertiesextracted from the position information. By sorting according toposition, a travel trail could e.g. be generated.

In yet another embodiment the sorting criterion is selected by themobile phone carrier and received from the mobile phone. Thereby thesorting could be performed from the mobile phone and the content coulde.g. be sorted and presented for e.g. a travel companion or a friend metduring a travel.

In a specific embodiment the detection of the position information ofthe mobile phone is performed periodically after receiving said requestfrom the mobile phone. Thereby the travel trail could be generated andassociated with position specific content, without the need for actionsperformed by the mobile carrier.

The invention further relates to a system for obtaining positionalinformation of a mobile phone carrier and linking said positionalinformation to position specific multimedia content. The systemcomprises:

-   -   means for obtaining the position information of the mobile phone        based on a position detection of the mobile phone,    -   means for linking the detected position information to said        position specific multimedia content.

In the following, preferred embodiments of the invention will bedescribed referring to the figures, where

FIG. 1 illustrates an example of the present invention where themultimedia contents are photos recorded by a camera carried by themobile phone carrier,

FIG. 2 illustrates an example where the camera comprises communicationmeans for communicating with the mobile phone,

FIG. 3 illustrates an embodiment of the present invention where themobile phone carrier does not carry a camera.

In FIG. 1 it is illustrated how the positioning using the mobile phonecan be performed according to the present invention where the positionspecific multimedia contents are photos recorded by an analog camera 105carried by the mobile phone carrier 101.

In 111, access to a WAP portal is established from the mobile phone 103.This could include transmitting personal identification to the WAPportal such as e.g. phone number, country info, e-mail address and/orprovider info. After the connection to the WAP portal has beenestablished, the mobile phone carrier can enter data which are to betransmitted to the portal using a WAP client on the mobile phone. First113 the mobile phone carrier could create a session (S) 113 e.g. as a“New photo session”. Next 115, the mobile phone carrier specifies an IDof the current film role (FRID) in the analog camera 105. This coulde.g. be specified with identification parameters such as Role ID 1 forthe first role or first session.

A session has now been created and the mobile phone carrier can nowstart taking photos. When a photo has been shot, the photoidentification is sent to the WAP portal via the mobile phone. When e.g.the first photo has been stored in the analog camera, the photo ID (PID)of that photo could be supplied 117 as 1 to the portal via the mobilephone (the number could e.g. be the same as the number of the exposuredisplay counter of the analog camera). Besides the photo ID, the portalcould also be supplied with individual attributes of the photo taken,like camera settings and a comment. Further, the mobile phone could alsosupply the portal with a sound recorded by the phone, such as ambientnoise at the place where the photo is shot or a comment made by themobile phone carrier. Additionally, the mobile phone could provide theportal with the magnetic direction of the mobile phone carrier whenshooting the photo, which would make the positioning of the mobile phoneeven more exact.

The portal has now been informed that a photo has been taken and theposition detection (PD) of the mobile phone can be initiated 119. Thisposition detection could be performed using standard positioning methodsfrom which a third party, such as the portal, can request and obtain aposition of a specified mobile phone via e.g. the Internet (thepositioning method could e.g. be Network Initiated Location Request(NI-LR) using E-OTD and Mobile Originated Location Request). If themobile phone does not support the accurate positioning techniquesdescribed above, another method would be to request the GSM Cell ID fromthe network operator and then use this ID to request the geographicalarea covered by that GSM cell from the GSM service provider. Thisresults in a rough estimate, which can still be used to find a specificarea in a city and which can be further refined by showing a digital mapof the area. The position detection could also comprise establishingfurther position specific information such as weather conditions basedon the time and on the detected position.

After having obtained the detected position (PD) and the photo specificinformation like the photo ID (PID), the data are linked 121 e.g. bystoring (S) the information with a unique common ID at the portal orwithin the same file. This is performed each time a photo is taken andwhen a photo session is completed e.g. because a film role is ended orbecause a vacation has ended. The session is ended (!S) 123 by givinginstructions from the mobile phone. A complete photo session has endedcomprising a number of photos where each photo is linked with specificinformation, such as position information and other information asspecified above.

In FIG. 2 an example is given where the camera 205 is e.g. a digitalcamera comprising communication means for communicating with the mobilephone e.g. (IRDA, Bluetooth, USB and RS232) and storage means such as amemory card for storing the photos. In 211, access to a WAP portal isestablished as described with FIG. 1 and then the mobile phone carriercreates a session (S) 213. After the session has been created, themobile phone carrier can start taking photos. When a photo has been shot(PS) information indicating this is sent 215 to the WAP portal via themobile phone. The portal has now been informed that a photo has beentaken and the position detection (PD) of the mobile phone can beinitiated 217. After having obtained the detected position (PD), thedetected position is transmitted from the WAP portal to the camera viathe mobile phone and the detected position and the photo are linked e.g.by storing the information with a unique common ID in the memory card ofthe camera. The detected position can be a HTTP link generated by theportal, which has the positional information and associated information.The PD can also be unique ID generated for that user at that location.This is performed each time a photo is taken and when a photo session iscompleted because e.g. a vacation has ended. The session is ended (!S)221 by giving instructions from the mobile phone. A complete photosession has ended and a set of photos is stored in the camera togetherwith a specified position. The information could e.g. be embedded withthe photo, this information being an HTTP link to the specified positionor an HTTP link to the specified position coupled with position specificinformation (like audio clip, folk song etc) for each photo. It is anadvantage if the HTTP link is embedded to the picture because thecontent it refers to (a map, a folk song etc) can be downloaded by theuser at his convenience.

Now, if the multimedia device has two storing media, then the sortingand copying of photos from one medium to the other can be facilitated bythe portal itself. Assume the user has taken photos in the followinglocations:

1) In Rome, near coliseum

2) In San Marino Grand Prix circuit.

3) Near Venice

If the user gives a request to the portal

Step 1) Sort and copy image from one medium (or session) to the other.

Step 2) Now portal derives the names of the locations from thecoordinates where these multimedia recordings (photos) are taken.

Step 3) Now portal throws names of these locations to the user (as SMSor as web page). This may look like this:

1) Rome—coliseum

2) San Marino—GP circuit

3) Venice—Island Murano

Step 4) Now user may ask the portal to copy—San Marino GP recordingsfrom one medium to the other medium.

Step 5) Now the portal may simply prompt the user on the mobile phonedisplay about which photo IDs belong to San Marion GP recordings and theuser can simply copy them, without looking at the photograph.

Step 6) Alternatively, the photos can be copied automatically by havinga suitable link (IR or Bluetooth) and a program.

In FIG. 3 an embodiment of the present invention is described where themobile phone carrier does not carry a camera. In 311, access to a WAPportal is established as described in connection with FIG. 1 and then in313 the mobile phone carrier creates a session (S) from the mobilephone. After the session has been created, the mobile phone carrier canstart obtaining position specific photos or audio etc. This is performedby indicating firstly for the portal that a position specific photoshould be acquired (AP) 315. The indication could, in an embodiment,comprise a sound recorded by the phone such as ambient noise at theposition or a comment made by the mobile phone carrier.

The portal then detects the position (PD) of the mobile phone 317 and in319 the detected position is used to find a position specific photo. Thephoto could e.g. be found from a number of photos already stored at theportal together with their position information. Alternatively, thephotos could be stored in a third part server connected to the portalvia a network, such as the Internet. The photos could also be stored infile formats such as JPEG, EXIF and TIFF and the positional informationcould be tagged in the file format of the photo. Besides using theposition information to find a position specific photo, time informationcould also be used. A photo that has been taken at the same time orapproximately at the same time of the day and of the season could bechosen e.g. ensuring that a night photo is chosen at night and a fallphoto is chosen if the mobile phone carrier is traveling during fall.Further, if the magnetic direction of the line of sight of the mobilephone carrier is also sent from the mobile phone to the portal, then itwould be possible to determine what object the mobile phone carrier islooking at and use this for obtaining a position specific photo of theobject.

After having obtained the detected position (PD) and the positionspecific photo (FP) or number of photos, either the photos or a link tothe photos are stored 321 in a specific area of the portal or the portalcould add it to a web page, being maintained by the portal for specificsession. The position detection and the obtaining of a position specificphoto are performed each time it is requested by the mobile phonecarrier. When a photo session is completed e.g. because a vacation orjourney has ended, the session is ended (!S) 323 by giving instructionsfrom the mobile phone. A complete photo session has ended comprising anumber of position specific photos.

In a practical situation, the embodiment described using FIG. 3 can beused to send a post card, a travel trail or a log to a friend asdescribed below. In the example, the mobile phone carrier uses SMSinstead of WAP for communicating with the portal.

It is assumed that the mobile phone carrier is near Niagara Falls. It isevening and the waterfall is lit up. He wants to send a post card of thewaterfall/area to his friend in India.

-   1. The mobile phone carrier sends an SMS to the portal (portal can    be a website or a telephone number derived from that). The SMS    contains the postal address or e-mail address of the mobile phone    carrier's friend (intended post card receiver).-   2. The portal initiates the position finding after receiving the SMS    by determining the position of the mobile phone from which the SMS    was sent.-   3. Now the portal searches the tag information embedded in JPEG/EXIF    files and stored in its database for coordinates, which closely    match with the mobile phone carrier's position and optional    time/season etc.-   4. Optionally, the portal could maintain digital maps of cities;    hence it maintains a database of places against location. So the    portal can also sort pictures by the name of the mobile phone    carrier's location, if the pictures do not contain the coordinates.-   5. Optionally, the portal may send the name of pictures available to    the mobile phone carrier as an SMS. This might be the following    message:    -   ▪ “Please select what you want”    -   1. “Morning shot of Niagara spring season”    -   2. “Evening shot of Niagara all lit up”        -   Assume that the mobile phone carrier selects option 2 and            informs the portal.-   6. Optionally, the mobile phone carrier can make a call or visit to    the portal and leave a message that records the surrounding ambient    noise of the waterfall. Or the portal can also have the audio clip    stored already similar to the stored photos.-   7. Now the portal sends the picture to the receiver, which could be    customized as per the mobile phone carrier's location/time/season or    at least one of them. Alternatively, the portal could send a link to    the picture. The portal could also send the recorded ambient noise    as a wav or mp3 file.-   8. Alternatively, the portal may inform its partner portal in the    receiver's country (in this case it is India) to send the respective    picture to the mobile phone carrier's friend. The picture can be    delivered in paper or as a CD with audio clip etc.-   9. Optionally, the portal may record and publish all the location    specific content as a web page, or it can send the user's travel    trail CD (with multimedia content of course) to the receiver (user's    friend in this case), with the help of its partner portal in the    receiver's country.

Now three embodiments have been described where a position of a mobilephone carrier is detected and where the position is linked to positionspecific multimedia content such as position specific photos and orposition specific audio. Additionally, it has been described howposition specific photos could be linked with properties of the camerawhen shooting the picture. The linked information could be stored in thedescribed embodiments, either at the portal or in the memory card of thecamera. In a further embodiment, the information could be stored in themobile phone.

After storing the information, a user can access the information and usethe additional data to sort the photos according to the additional datae.g. sorting per location, sorting per camera property or sorting permagnetic direction. The sorted information can then either be mailed tothe mobile phone carrier's home e-mail address or to a friend's e-mailaddress, which has been specified by the mobile phone carrier. Further,the sorting could be used for e.g. copying the photos into two memorycards, one memory card could comprise photos from Germany and anotherphotos from India. Further, by using time information and position, atour map can be generated showing how and when the traveler or mobilephone carrier travels from destination to destination.

In other embodiments the present invention could be used for generatinga travel trail or a virtual picture album when the traveller has got nocamera; or if the camera is forgotten, the travel trail could thenautomatically be made known to his friends or relatives by a web pageupdate.

Further, the invention could be used by tourists to send picture postcards to their family members and friends when they are near a historicmonument, a nature spot etc. Then travellers can send their vacationtravel trails (with text and multimedia content) to theirfriends/relatives without having a multimedia-recording device such ascamera. Instead, the thousands of photographs of famous monumentsalready taken and available (digitally as well as in paper) can be used.A person standing near Taj Mahal need not search for a post card thereto send that to his friend. Instead one of the thousands of photographscan be used. Similarly, location specific multimedia contents like folksongs etc could be sent.

This solves the problems of sending such pictures as paper post cardsespecially from a foreign country which can be expensive (postagestamps, envelope etc). Further, finding a right picture that reflectsthe traveller's situation (time, season of the year and ambientcondition) is pretty tough. Also, sending a JPEG/EXIF file as an e-mailis also a problem because the traveller has to locate an internet café,pay for browsing and selecting a picture etc. Even if he browses usingthe mobile phone it is also expensive and time consuming. Further,sending an image doesn't include ambient noise, atmospheric information,local folk music and not even time information.

1. A method of obtaining positional information of a mobile phonecarrier and linking said positional information to position specificmultimedia content, the method comprises the steps of: obtaining theposition information of the mobile phone based on a position detectionof the mobile phone, linking the position information to said positionspecific multimedia content.
 2. A method according to claim 1, whereinthe method further comprises the step of receiving identification ofsaid position specific multimedia content from the mobile phone carrier.3. A method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprisesthe step of receiving position specific multimedia content from themobile phone carrier.
 4. A method according to any of the claims 1-3,wherein the position specific multimedia content is recorded by amultimedia recording device at said position of the mobile phonecarrier.
 5. A method according to claim 4, wherein the method furthercomprises the step of receiving properties of said multimedia recordingdevice from the mobile phone carrier.
 6. A method according to any ofthe claims 1-5, wherein the step of detecting the position informationof the mobile phone also comprises detecting the magnetic orientation ofthe mobile phone carrier.
 7. A method according to any of the claims1-6, wherein the method further comprises the step of sorting themultimedia content according to a sorting criterion.
 8. A methodaccording to claim 7, wherein the sorting criterion is based onproperties extracted from the position information.
 9. A methodaccording to claim 7-8, wherein the sorting criterion is selected by themobile phone carrier and received from the mobile phone.
 10. A methodaccording to claim 1-9, wherein the detection of the positioninformation of the mobile phone is performed periodically afterreceiving said request from the mobile phone.
 11. A system for obtainingpositional information of a mobile phone carrier and linking saidpositional information to position specific multimedia content, thesystem comprises: means for obtaining the position information of themobile phone based on a position detection of said mobile phone, meansfor linking the detected position information to said position specificmultimedia content.